So I got ahold of the Japanese version of the game, and got through the tutorial dungeon with the help of Maxim's mad scientist friend Lexis, at the end of which Gades showed up and called me a foolish mortal, and kicked my ass. Then Iris saved me, joined my party, and we crossed Gordovan Bridge to get to Percelyte. In the interim, Tia the tomboy joined my party.

So I got ahold of the Japanese version of the game, and got through the tutorial dungeon with the help of Maxim's mad scientist friend Lexis, at the end of which Gades showed up and called me a foolish mortal, and kicked my ass. Then Iris saved me, joined my party, and we crossed Gordovan Bridge to get to Percelyte. In the interim, Tia the tomboy joined my party.

WTF?

I've heard it suggested many times to not to expect this game to be Lufia 2. Sounds like they were right.

But then again Lufia 2's plot mostly consisted of fetch questing from one region to the next while building the party that will eventually take on the four sinistrals and get partially wiped out in the process as per the plot of Lufia 1.

Tia the tomboy amuses me to no end though. She's still getting dumped on her ass for the better model but in this case it's for an even bigger tomboy still.

I played Lufia 2 for the first time last year. It was awesome. So was the music. I have the OST for this new one, and I will absolutely be picking it up when it comes out. That said, I'm a little skeptical about the fact that I heard they turned it into an ARPG?

For example, in Lufia 2, Guy was a rather elegant warrior who had a fair and honest duel with Maxim, in this game he's a total meathead who just attacks Maxim on sight because he wants to see what he's made of.

I don't know why people seem upset about this updated story. It's more fleshed out, and it's not the same thing we all played 15 years ago. A straight conversion would not have aged well. Also, Guy now seems like the straight brute he was meant to be. I'm more annoyed about Dekar being what seems like a hot headed pink haired nutjob instead of the muscle bound ego driven dumbass he was in the original game. But i don't care, the game looks like it's pretty good from the vids and scans I've seen, I want to play it.

I don't know why people seem upset about this updated story. It's more fleshed out, and it's not the same thing we all played 15 years ago. A straight conversion would not have aged well. Also, Guy now seems like the straight brute he was meant to be. I'm more annoyed about Dekar being what seems like a hot headed pink haired nutjob instead of the muscle bound ego driven dumbass he was in the original game. But i don't care, the game looks like it's pretty good from the vids and scans I've seen, I want to play it.

The story from 15 years ago was much better and has aged well. The new one throws in anime cliches and idiocies like there's no tomorrow and the game loses a lot of impact because of it. (Spoilers incoming)

Guy was a one of those brash-but-gentlemanly warriors in the original, he challenged Maxim to an honorable duel, which has completely different connotations than in this game, where he just says "You're Maxim?" and attacks without warning. It's absurd.

Secondly, in the original, Tia hung around until Maxim marries Selan, and there was this whole scene where it's made clear that she's the homey, domestic life that will forever be out of reach of Maxim, who is eternally destined to be a warrior. In this game, she acts like a lunatic fangirl and gets jealous whenever Maxim is seen with a lady. Worse still, she HANGS AROUND AFTER MAXIM AND SELAN GETS MARRIED. There's this whole scene where the gang decides to go to the beach and Tia's all "so you want to see me in my bathing suit?" and Maxim says "Not really..." which Tia responds with "Yeah, I know, I was just joking! Ha ha!" Seriously stupid shit.

There are lots more that take away from the subtlety and meaning of the original story and replaces it with anime bullshit, like Lexis turned into a mad scientist instead of just an eccentric genius, but I think you know what I mean now.

For all the retarded story changes, though, Dekar actually has remained the same. He is a badass, an egotist, and a complete moron. His signature line is something like "SECOND TO MY SWORD, THE THING I AM BEST AT IS <insert thing here>." He does this repeatedly. It's hilarious.

I don't know why people seem upset about this updated story. It's more fleshed out, and it's not the same thing we all played 15 years ago. A straight conversion would not have aged well. Also, Guy now seems like the straight brute he was meant to be. I'm more annoyed about Dekar being what seems like a hot headed pink haired nutjob instead of the muscle bound ego driven dumbass he was in the original game. But i don't care, the game looks like it's pretty good from the vids and scans I've seen, I want to play it.

The story from 15 years ago was much better and has aged well. The new one throws in anime cliches and idiocies like there's no tomorrow and the game loses a lot of impact because of it. (Spoilers incoming)

Guy was a one of those brash-but-gentlemanly warriors in the original, he challenged Maxim to an honorable duel, which has completely different connotations than in this game, where he just says "You're Maxim?" and attacks without warning. It's absurd.

Secondly, in the original, Tia hung around until Maxim marries Selan, and there was this whole scene where it's made clear that she's the homey, domestic life that will forever be out of reach of Maxim, who is eternally destined to be a warrior. In this game, she acts like a lunatic fangirl and gets jealous whenever Maxim is seen with a lady. Worse still, she HANGS AROUND AFTER MAXIM AND SELAN GETS MARRIED. There's this whole scene where the gang decides to go to the beach and Tia's all "so you want to see me in my bathing suit?" and Maxim says "Not really..." which Tia responds with "Yeah, I know, I was just joking! Ha ha!" Seriously stupid shit.

There are lots more that take away from the subtlety and meaning of the original story and replaces it with anime bullshit, like Lexis turned into a mad scientist instead of just an eccentric genius, but I think you know what I mean now.

For all the retarded story changes, though, Dekar actually has remained the same. He is a badass, an egotist, and a complete moron. His signature line is something like "SECOND TO MY SWORD, THE THING I AM BEST AT IS <insert thing here>." He does this repeatedly. It's hilarious.

The irony here is that the original Lufia 2 was also loaded with anime cliches. The biggest difference though is that those cliches were mid 90's anime cliches and not the anime cliches of the later 00's. And thanks to the anime bubble of the early 00's a lot of those cliches were run into the ground. For instance, trying to watch Inuyasha back when it first started in 2000 versus trying to watch Inuyasha last fall (the fact that it never changed at all after the main cast was introduced was also a big reason for me as to why I couldn't even bother with the final act or whatever). A lot of these cliches are old and tired and if the bubble came and went 15 years earlier we probably would've felt the same way with Lufia 2 (well if we were as old then as we are now).

I don't know why people seem upset about this updated story. It's more fleshed out, and it's not the same thing we all played 15 years ago. A straight conversion would not have aged well. Also, Guy now seems like the straight brute he was meant to be. I'm more annoyed about Dekar being what seems like a hot headed pink haired nutjob instead of the muscle bound ego driven dumbass he was in the original game. But i don't care, the game looks like it's pretty good from the vids and scans I've seen, I want to play it.

The story from 15 years ago was much better and has aged well. The new one throws in anime cliches and idiocies like there's no tomorrow and the game loses a lot of impact because of it. (Spoilers incoming)

Guy was a one of those brash-but-gentlemanly warriors in the original, he challenged Maxim to an honorable duel, which has completely different connotations than in this game, where he just says "You're Maxim?" and attacks without warning. It's absurd.

Secondly, in the original, Tia hung around until Maxim marries Selan, and there was this whole scene where it's made clear that she's the homey, domestic life that will forever be out of reach of Maxim, who is eternally destined to be a warrior. In this game, she acts like a lunatic fangirl and gets jealous whenever Maxim is seen with a lady. Worse still, she HANGS AROUND AFTER MAXIM AND SELAN GETS MARRIED. There's this whole scene where the gang decides to go to the beach and Tia's all "so you want to see me in my bathing suit?" and Maxim says "Not really..." which Tia responds with "Yeah, I know, I was just joking! Ha ha!" Seriously stupid shit.

There are lots more that take away from the subtlety and meaning of the original story and replaces it with anime bullshit, like Lexis turned into a mad scientist instead of just an eccentric genius, but I think you know what I mean now.

For all the retarded story changes, though, Dekar actually has remained the same. He is a badass, an egotist, and a complete moron. His signature line is something like "SECOND TO MY SWORD, THE THING I AM BEST AT IS <insert thing here>." He does this repeatedly. It's hilarious.

First, Guy is a hick, a simple minded country boy. The fact that they gave him any kind of etiquette outside of "ya sure are a strong feller I tell ya what" is stupid. He's no adventuring warlord, neither is Maxim. Guy's new approach in the game is excellent, as it's far more befitting of a country bumpkin with muscles for brains. In all honesty, the fact that he challenged Maxim, a guy he's never met before, to a duel out of nowhere is fuck retarded any way you slice it, so an unannounced attack is again, more interesting.

Tia's new character is ACTUALLY INTERESTING NOW. Originally just a useless fangirl for the most part who had no merit in the game, now she actual has some dialogue outside of stupidly agreeing or disagreeing with someone. She was a waste of a character in the original, and now she has some merit, I'm glad to see it.

Selan has no real change as far as I have seen so far, but she was fine originally, no complaints now.

Arty, he popped in for like 3 hours of the original, and I really couldn't like/dislike him. He stole Dekar's spot, I was pissed by this. He replaced Lexis, I was pleased by this. He could use the bow and hit everything, I was happy. He didn't hurt stuff, so bleh. Arty was there.

Maxim's new character seems mostly unchanged outside of the fact that he looks like Cloud Strife and Simon Belmont from Castlevania Judgement (the shitty Wii fighting game) had a love child who also couldn't dress popularly. Hate the design, but he's a japanese main character, it's expected.

Dekar.......Dekar was my favorite character in Lufia II. Awesome attitude, SUPER strong, and his final character specific weapon (Dekar Blade) was sex. He was hilarious, and he looked badass (character art, in game sprite, etc). Now, he looks like some jp funk emo prick from a highschool j-pop band.who obviously took style advice from gackt. His design FAILS. That being said, he's supposedly got the same attitude and basic character he had from II, so I can't complain.

Lexis is a mad scientist, I'm happy he's now portrayed as a mad scientist. That being said, he replaced Dekar at some point in my game. Fuck him in his stupid scientific face.

The Sinisitral all look relatively decent, Gades and Daos look sick, especially the face portraits. Amon...freaks me out. And Erim....haven't seen her yet, look forward to it actually. The fact they get more in game time is kewwlllll. Also, saw one of the later Gades fights....I CAN'T FUCKING WAIT TO TEAR HIM OUT WHILE LISTENING TO BATTLE THEME 3.

Overall, I don't know why you're upset about this re-imagining of the game. The story was very bare bones to begin with, and now it has some depth, stands out a little bit from its simple minded 16 bit predecessors. I seriously don't understand why people want old games remade as old games. What's the point? Go play the old game, it's gonna be everything you want already. if you're gonna remake the game, remake it completely, give it some fucking color. The only thing I fear is that Natsume is localizing it, and they localized the last 3 english Lufia games, which if you have read the dialogue, gets so butchered it's almost sad. Hopefully, they'll do a decent (and by decent I mean make it readable) job, but I don't expect much. The music is mildly retained, and better at points, and the gameplay looks great, reminding me of the newer Ys games for PS2/PSP. So in conclusion, yeah, it's not our parent's Lufia II, but I look forward to it like a kid in a candy store eyeballing that lollipop. Worst case, it's a 300 meg download on my acekard.